Best practice to grant programming contractors access to betfair API or account?

[JohnFromCairnsAustralia]

Hello there,

I have to date been working on my own bespoke software, however the time has come that I am considering a contractor.

My conundrum is, how does one allow a contractor to run tests on live data without themselves having a betfair account and api access?

I would presume it is against the terms of service to allow a contractor to use my own credentials. Not that I would want them having access to my account anyway.

I have contemplated writing simulation code to enable the contractor to work with, but that is work I would prefer to avoid if I can.

Would the correct approach be to purchase an API key specifically for the contractor and use that?

Just thought I'd put it out there, what do you guys do? or what would you do in that circumstance?

Thanks for any ideas
John

[bfexplorer]

How could anyone without having access to betfair api be able to program reliable code for betfair?

Forgive me but what you ask make no sense.

Developer needs time to familiarize yourself with any api, to produce good code. It is not just question of reading api documentation. With betfair all that is even more difficult because developer needs to know more about betting and/or trading on betfair, that is app domain he/she needs to understand, and that cannot be learned from betfair api documentation either.

[JohnFromCairnsAustralia]

Well, I am wondering if there is any way to get someone access to the API, when they are not using it to place bets with, just for development purposes only (either through mine or some other way). But perhaps it was a silly question. Best to just get them their own API key...

Yes, I understand there is a long and steep learning curve

Thank you

[LetsGo]

Well, I am wondering if there is any way to get someone access to the API, when they are not using it to place bets with, just for development purposes only (either through mine or some other way). But perhaps it was a silly question. Best to just get them their own API key...

Yes, I understand there is a long and steep learning curve

Thank you

You can use an api for development only, you don't need to be placing bets with it.
The best approach to development is to use the sample code as your base and work from there.
I have found that the api documentation is difficult to understand and is not uptodate.

[JohnFromCairnsAustralia]

You can use an api for development only, you don't need to be placing bets with it.
The best approach to development is to use the sample code as your base and work from there.
I have found that the api documentation is difficult to understand and is not uptodate.

Thanks Lets Go...Yeah... Well, I having been working on my app for 18 months or so on a part time basis (maybe constitutes 6-9 months full time)....and yeah...its time consuming to learn the API....(I dont use the stream api as yet)

A contractor to a degree can work off the sample code (that's what I base mine on)...but at some point they will need to test things out live...

We'll see how we go.. Thanks for your thoughts!

[jabe]

You can use an api for development only, you don't need to be placing bets with it.
The best approach to development is to use the sample code as your base and work from there.
I have found that the api documentation is difficult to understand and is not uptodate.

So how do you test the betting part of your software if you don't need to be placing bets? Development includes testing.

[LetsGo]

So how do you test the betting part of your software if you don't need to be placing bets? Development includes testing.

Does it aye

[bfexplorer]

People why do not you use already build betfair vendors apps? They are tested and not just by people who used them, but by betfair itself during certification process every app must go.

Most of this apps allows integration of bespoke bots, and my app is open for such bespoke development by offering BOT SDK, so there is no need to programm anything against betfair api, you really program just your strategy.

For instance, here is really simple strategy:

https://gist.github.com/StefanBelo/8...e2f6cf322ea484

So your code just orchestrate execution of "action bots".

[LetsGo]

People why do not you use already build betfair vendors apps? They are tested and not just by people who used them, but by betfair itself during certification process every app must go.

Most of this apps allows integration of bespoke bots, and my app is open for such bespoke development by offering BOT SDK, so there is no need to programm anything against betfair api, you really program just your strategy.

For instance, here is really simple strategy:

https://gist.github.com/StefanBelo/8...e2f6cf322ea484

So your code just orchestrate execution of "action bots".

Wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole.
What would happen if I wrote a strategy that made a profit?
Surely you would find out what my winning strategy was and that would be me finished.

.

[jabe]

I think your assumptions may be inaccurate.

[JohnFromCairnsAustralia]

Everyone is different.....but for mine, in retrospect, I would agree to have been better off using third party tools. However in my circumstance a large part of that work is done, so I choose to stick with it...If I could go back with the knowledge I had now, I would be working off third party tools...but live and learn....

The learning curve of bespoke apps from the ground up is rather large....unless you are a full time experienced software engineer that already knows everything

When I started out I was an intermediate programmer of a maybe 4-5 years experience doing LOB apps...trading apps are a bit different to that though....e.g. nothing I wrote previously had anything to do with event driven architecture...and one easily gets messed up trying to learn things like MVVM (in my instance I did, but thats another story) ... etc...

[bfexplorer]

Wouldn't touch it with a barge-pole.
What would happen if I wrote a strategy that made a profit?
Surely you would find out what my winning strategy was and that would be me finished.

.

I repeat it once again, betfair checks all vendors apps for security, so there is no way for me to know what users of my app do with bfexplorer app. I think you forgot to say that Putin is behind every betfair app checking which strategy is profitable.

[bfexplorer]

Everyone is different.....but for mine, in retrospect, I would agree to have been better off using third party tools. However in my circumstance a large part of that work is done, so I choose to stick with it...If I could go back with the knowledge I had now, I would be working off third party tools...but live and learn....

The learning curve of bespoke apps from the ground up is rather large....unless you are a full time experienced software engineer that already knows everything

When I started out I was an intermediate programmer of a maybe 4-5 years experience doing LOB apps...trading apps are a bit different to that though....e.g. nothing I wrote previously had anything to do with event driven architecture...and one easily gets messed up trying to learn things like MVVM (in my instance I did, but thats another story) ... etc...

You say: "The learning curve of bespoke apps from the ground up is rather large..."

So in case you use bot trigger to integrate you bot code to bfexplorer all you need to know is that your betfair bot class must implement interface:

IBotTrigger

which implements 1 function , and one method, and all that you can learn just from intellisense support when writing code in IDE of your choice, as IDE would suggest what methods should be implemented by IBotTrigger interface. From my example you also learn that your class must implement constructor accepting 5 arguments, as that is the way bfexplorer app exchange data.

My code samples are written in F#, but you can do so in any .net programming language, here is the list of CLI compatible programming languages:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CLI_languages

Bfexplorer supports direct bot trigger compilation only from F#, but you can compile your code in any of mentioned languages, and run your dll bot trigger assemblies using Execute Trigger Bot.

[JohnFromCairnsAustralia]

Hi Bfexplorer, thank you. Yes, I have considered going that route. There is a possibility I may, but for the moment I am sticking with my original code base for a few reasons... but yeah personally, I would suggest to anyone starting out its a much cheaper way to go...